YYMom:
Your question is a little like asking, “When did you stop beating your wife?” I think i am prohibited from forgiving those whom i’m pretty certain God will not forgive because they refuse to repent. This is what i believe Jesus is telling me when He says
*Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves. **“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” *(Luke 17:1-4)
First of all, it’s presumptuous of you to even attempt to determine what God will or will not forgive. His forgiveness is separate from yours (
unless you are a priest in the confessional).
Second, what if your ‘guess’ is wrong? You’re ‘pretty certain’ but what if God forgives and you are the only one withholding forgiveness for that particular act of that particular person?
Third, that passage, as we’ve pointed out
every time you bring it up speaks to
our obligation to forgive
when a person asks it of us. It does not limit us to forgiveness **only **when repentance (let alone ignorance) is present.
The word forgive means to pardon a person and to absolve him from any consequences for his actions. With this in mind, i would never pardon a child molester and absolve him from the consequences of his sins by allowing him to work alone with children.
What the forgiven
does after he receives forgiveness is not within your control. That’s justice.
Your question pertains to forgiveness alone.
Certainly you can pardon and absolve anyone of any offense they commit against
you. You can even absolve and pardon people for offending your family and friends.
The consequences for the offense and the justice necessary to reconcile the matter is a separate issue.
At least, i would not consider it if he refused to repent and said he’d sexually abuse children again, if he could. Would you?
Consider forgiving him for molesting my child? Yes, I would because God asks me to, and
I trust God completely to reconcile the action either now or in the afterlife. I don’t have to worry about whether I should or shouldn’t release the person from his debt because I’m not God. By forgiving him without repentance I can get no closer in my imitation of Christ, so that’s reason enough for me.
**You still haven’t answered the question, you dodged it - you need only pick one:
which action** do you believe Jesus would value more as a demonstration of your love for Him:
Forgiving someone who repents to you as **you are obliged **to do (according to the law or scripture)
or
forgiving the person without their repentance when **you are not obliged **to do so, nor are you prohibited from doing so (according to the law or scripture)?
The question is nothing like ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ because it is never right to do so.
It is never
wrong to forgive someone (again, you’ve yet to supply scripture to indicate it is).
There are certain conditions under which one can be moved to forgive others. There may even be more than the two I presented, but I am asking,
of those two options, which would be most pleasing to God?
